


How did I ever get lucky enough

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M, Temeraire au, and theyre both fighting in the napoleonic war for the british, so basically like a dragon and rider au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 11:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18716224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: The dragonet falls clumsily out of its egg, scattering broken fragments of shell out into the next and onto the floor, scales and teeth spilling out all in one serpentine length.“Oh my!” the dragonet exclaims, and Wash hurries to catch him before he falls onto the floor. He’s warm and heavy, the size of a smallish dog, and Wash crowds him close to his chest without thinking. The dragonet squirms around in his arms until he’s got his front paws on Wash’s collarbone, is pushing himself up to look into Wash’s eyes.Slit pupils, wide sky blue eyes, pastel pink scales.“Hello,” Wash rasps.“Well, aren’t you handsome!” the dragonet chirps, cheerfully surprised.





	How did I ever get lucky enough

“Washington, it’s hatching,” says a breathless man who two seconds ago slammed Wash’s door open so hard that he’s already out of his bed and on his feet with a knife in his hands, no memory of how it got there. 

“Hatching,” he says blankly, and then he’s shoving the knife away somewhere discrete and scrambling after the man who’d turned around and started sprinting so quickly he hadn’t even had enough time to notice and get all squeamish about the knife. Good. There’s no time to waste. Wash has been in the dragon corps for over a decade now, working his way up the ranks, earning achievements, losing friends to the war, sharpening himself like a blade until he shone so brightly that they  _ had _ to promise him a dragon. He’s been waiting over a decade for this one to hatch, for  _ his _ dragon, and he is  _ not _ going to miss it. 

He outruns the man sent to fetch him, speeding past him, hurdling over obstacles in his path without slowing down. Dragons tend to imprint on the people right in front of them, with very few exceptions. He has to be there for the hatching. He has to. 

Wash bursts through the door into the final room, his destination, the one he’s gone to so many times to stare intently at egg put aside for him, to speak to it. The shell a soft pink with whorls of lavender. He’s memorized every inch of it at this point. 

It’s placed on a soft bed of straw to protect it, as usual, and the furnace beneath the rock supporting its nest is warming it as usual. Not as usual, it’s cracking. His breath catches. 

“It’s happening,” he says, eyes wide, coming closer, going to his knees, hands hovering, not daring to touch. “It’s really happening.” 

He’s waited five years for his dragon to hatch. Worked twelve years for it. 

“You’re welcome,” Tucker, the caretaker of the eggs, who kept them warm and safe and kept an eye out for hatchings, says dryly, warmth hidden underneath his tone. 

“Thank you,” Wash says earnestly. “Now get the fuck out.” 

Tucker rolls his eyes and huffs a laugh, and gets out, closing the door behind him. Having any more people than just Wash in here with the dragon would just unnecessarily risk… everything. 

Cracks are slowly creeping down the egg. If he holds his breath, he can just barely hear it over his own thundering heart. The cracks, the soft intermittent struggling from inside the egg. That’s his dragon in there, pushing and straining outwards. He wants to reach out and help, pull the shells away, but he’s not supposed to. The dragon needs to do this themself. He knots his fingers together to stop himself. 

He’s holding his breath, trying to be as quiet as possible, to take every detail of every second in, but a soft sound of wonder and excitement still escapes him when the dragonets small pink snout peeks out from between shell fragments. The dragonet noses weakly at the shells breaking further out. 

He’d thought himself long since jaded by grief and trauma and war, but suddenly he feels just like his old self again, for one precious moment that doesn’t even feel bitter for it. Young and excited and hopeful. He’d never outgrown his childhood dream, not really. Just forgotten the feelings of it, for a while, running on fumes and stubborn determination and obligation. But all of a sudden it’s back now, the pure wonder of it. 

The dragonet falls clumsily out of its egg, scattering broken fragments of shell out into the next and onto the floor, scales and teeth spilling out all in one serpentine length. 

“Oh my!” the dragonet exclaims, and Wash hurries to catch him before he falls onto the floor. He’s warm and heavy, the size of a smallish dog, and Wash crowds him close to his chest without thinking. The dragonet squirms around in his arms until he’s got his front paws on Wash’s collarbone, is pushing himself up to look into Wash’s eyes. 

Slit pupils, wide sky blue eyes, pastel pink scales. 

“Hello,” Wash rasps. 

“Well, aren’t you handsome!” the dragonet chirps, cheerfully surprised. He tenses up and then jumps up onto Wash’s shoulders, curls around his neck like a scarf. “Don’t we look good together?” 

Wash laughs, shaky relief in his chest. He’s been accepted. The odds were in his favor, but you never know. It happens. He holds onto the dragonet on his shoulders carefully, keeping him steady. 

“Yeah, yeah we do. I’m Wash, your captain.” 

“Fantastic! What’s my name?” 

This is the sort of thing that having over ten years to mull it over should give him the perfect answer. 

“Uuuuuhhhhh,” Wash says instead, eyes desperately searching his surroundings for inspiration. His gaze falls on Tucker’s abandoned lunch. “Donut,” he says dumbly. “Wait, no--” 

“Donut!” he exclaims. “I  _ love _ it!” 

Defeated, Wash slumps. Donut nuzzles into his cheek, rumbling happily. Wash can’t stay exasperated with himself for long in the face of that. 

-

It’s been three months, and Wash is getting worried about Donut. He’s so outgoing and friendly with Wash, a bright chatterbox that won’t stop leaning in to periodically rub his face over basically Wash’s entire front, nearly sending him sprawling every time. It’s too endearing for Wash to be able to feel much more than fond exasperation for him. 

But it’s worrying, for how  _ different _ he is with the other dragons. He watches on from the hill as Donut eats his meal with the other dragons down in the field. At least thirty feet away from them.  _ They’re _ all clumped together in a big loose group, chattering over their cow carcasses. But Donut elects to drag his cow away from them all, gently breathing fire on it and then eating it on his lonesome. 

“Don’t you like them?” he asks him later, as he’s helping Donut out of his harness after the day’s training is over with. 

“Oh no, no, they’re fine, Wash,” Donut assures him. 

“Then why don’t you ever…” 

“Is that a spying Frenchman I see?” Donut interrupts him, sounding a might desperate. Wash confusedly looks behind him, towards plain cliff and rocks. “I should better go and investigate!” 

“Donut--” 

Donut flies off with his half of his harness dangling off of him, and that’s the end of  _ that _ conversation. 

Later that afternoon, Donut is settling down to sleep for the night. The torchlight in the clearing is sparse, only barely lighting up the silhouettes of the dragons spaced out to give them all ample room to sprawl, and some degree of privacy. Some of them, however, are lying close next to each other, whispering and laughing as quietly as dragons can manage, clearly not ready to go to sleep for the day. They are indulgently ignored. 

Donut doesn’t softly pad away to trade whispers with another dragon. He never does. 

“Could you read me another book?” Donut asks. “Not one of those stuffy boring ones where they try to teach you things, one of the _ fun _ ones, with the romances!” 

“I’m afraid that I don’t have one on hand,” he says, amused. Donut makes a disappointed noise, and he pats him consolingly. “I think that you would rather enjoy Romeo and Juliet. You have a taste for the lovelorn melodrama.” 

“Is that a book?” 

“A play, dear.” 

“What’s a play?” 

“Oh, well.” It can be a bit startling to casually run across one of Donut’s giant blind spots, but it honestly makes sense. Why would anyone ever talk about a play around a dragon? “It’s  _ like _ a book, except the story is played out by humans.” 

Donut tilts his head side to side as he apparently attempts to picture this. “That sounds… strange. But interesting! Wash, can we go see one? Pretty please?” 

“Ah,” he says awkwardly, already imagining the panic and pandemonium at the sight of a dragon trying to squeeze its way into a theatre, stone crumbling around the scales. “I’m afraid it might be too… far away. And I can’t afford it. Tickets are extremely expensive. Yes.” 

Donut endeavors to pout as much as a dragon can, settling his head down on his legs. Wash pats him consolingly. 

“Aren’t you tired, dear?” 

“Not really,” Donut sighs. 

“Then perhaps you could go and speak with one of the other dragons to pass the time?” he asks hopefully. 

Donut stiffens, and then curls up into a ball, facing away from Wash, knocking his hands off him in the process. “No, thank you.” 

“Donut,” he says, surprised and dismayed. “What is the matter?” 

“They don’t…” Donut says, but his voice is so small that Wash doesn’t entirely catch it, which is quite an anomaly with dragons in general and Donut in particular. 

“What?” he asks, coming closer, hands back on his dragon. “I didn’t hear you, dear. You can tell me, I won’t judge you. Even if you don’t like them--” 

“They don’t like  _ me!” _ he bursts out, partially coming out of his tight curled up ball, before determinedly throwing himself back into making himself as small as possible, hiding his head underneath a wing. 

Wash is still, taking this in. It hadn’t ever occurred to him that the  _ other  _ dragons were shunning  _ Donut’s  _ company. He’s just so… good. “Why?” he asks, genuinely bewildered. 

Donut sniffles quietly, and Wash’s heart breaks a little. “I don’t know. I’m just…  _ lame,  _ I guess.” 

“Lame,” he repeats disbelievingly. That is _ not _ one of the words that he would think to use to describe Donut. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Donut says quietly, and Wash promptly closes his mouth at that tearful tone. 

“... Of course, dear.” 

The next day, Wash goes to the town nearby after the rigorous training of the day instead of spending the afternoon with Donut, with many apologies. When he comes back, Donut is already asleep. He spends the night memorizing his purchase until he dozes off over the pages. The morning after that is grueling, and he has to take a two hour nap before he’s ready to enact his plan. 

“Donut, I know that I said that we couldn’t go to the theatre,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean that we can’t bring the theatre to us.” 

“What?” Donut asks without comprehension as Wash withdraws the manuscript from his jacket. 

“Two households, both alike in dignity,” he says, projecting his voice clear and loud, drawing eyes. “In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.” 

(“Well, I suppose that the captain matches the dragon,” Simmons says from nearby, leaning against his orange scaled dragon.

“Shh!” Sarge scolds, smoke huffing out along with the admonishment. “I’m trying to listen! I hope the Capulets all butcher the Montagues…”) 

Donut, it turns out, _ loves _ theatre. He is successfully cheered up. 

-

Donut is many things. He’s a cuddler. He’s friendly. He’s enthusiastic. He’s dramatic. He’s well intentioned. He has excellent vision and aim, and  _ spectacular _ fire breathing. 

The dragon corps really only cares about one of those things. 

“A truly successful crossbreed,” General Kimball says. 

They had finally gone out in the field for the first time yesterday, after months of drilling, and Donut had promptly shocked everyone by setting three French ships ablaze while staying well clear of cannon fire. They’d known that Donut could likely breathe fire before he’d even hatched, and Wash had watched him fussily cook his meat with small streams of fire before eating it unlike all of the other dragons downing their cows while they were still mooing, but that was truly an  _ unprecedented  _ range and intensity of flames. 

They’d landed back in the Blood Gulch training outpost to exclamations of impressed shock, congratulatory pats on the back, and outright applause. Donut had preened at the positive attention and theatrically bowed, one wing going out as he oh so humbly lowered his head. Wash had been unable to stop smiling. 

“Thank you, General,” Wash says, pride a warm thing in his chest. He’s just given her his verbal report, and she looks visibly impressed and eager, excited, pleased. That’s a pretty big accomplishment, considering how stone faced and practical she normally is. 

“We should start breeding as soon as possible,” she goes on. “We can’t pull him off duty, of course, he can do too much good out on the front. But put a word in with him, try and convince him to go for it if he has an eye on any of the dragons.” 

“Oh,” he says, nonplussed, somehow not having predicted this turn to the conversation. He supposed he just hadn’t expected to be told to encourage Donut to breed quite so soon. He was barely a year old. But there was solid logic behind the order. It took years for dragons to hatch, sometimes decades. If Donut’s breed would truly be so useful, then the sooner, the better. There was a war on, after all. “Yes ma’am.” 

When he goes to find Donut, the dragon is happily digging into his meal,  _ three _ cows, a clear reward for his excellent performance. “Oh, Wash,” Donut says, looking up from his meal, which is burned crisp and brown. “Did Kimball give us a medal?” he asks, tail thumping with excitement, eyes sparkling. 

Wash grins, approaching, sitting down by Donut’s side, leaning against his warm scales. 

“Not this time,” he says. “But I’m sure that if we continue as we did today, then it’ll happen in no time.” 

“Wonderful! Wash, you would look so beautiful with some gold on you, don’t you think? Do you want some cow?” 

“I’ve eaten, thank you.” He closes his eyes and relaxes against him. Donut is so genuinely bright and happy and kind, his presence always makes him feel like all of the long years are melting off of him like candle wax in the wake of strong sunshine, or a gentle flame. 

Christ, ‘all of the long years’. He sounds like he’s sixty, not thirty. 

“Today has been so fun,” Donut goes on between dainty sharp toothed bites that could devour a man in one chomp. _ “Actually _ fighting is much more fun than boring drills! The afterglow’s still got me all buzzy.” 

Wash had had some _ words  _ with Tucker once he realized what that man’s consistent presence around Donut’s impressionable egg had done the dragon’s speech patterns. Tucker had apologized, as soon as he’d finished laughing. It had taken some time. 

_ Speaking _ of afterglow, though… 

“Donut,” he says. “Do you…  _ like  _ anyone?” 

“I like you!” Donut promptly replies, and then proceeds to nuzzle him so soundly that Wash is knocked over onto the ground. 

“No, I mean,” he huffs as he sits back up, “a dragon, is there a dragon that you like?” 

“Oh, sure, plenty! I like Sarge and Caboose and Grif and--” 

_ “A girl dragon. _ Is there a  _ girl dragon  _ that you like?” 

“Sheila’s lovely,” Donut replies. 

Sheila. A large, sturdy frigate of a dragon, blue and black, but nice and polite. They could be a good match, he thinks. 

“I like her too,” he says, trying to think of a graceful way to word this. Donut can be sort of oblivious when it comes to the subtler things, so he’ll need to be direct. Dragons aren’t quite as  _ shy  _ as humans when it comes to this kind of thing, but he still doesn’t want to outright say _ so do you wanna fuck her?  _

Donut noses at him. “But not as much as you like me, right?” 

Wash huffs a soft laugh, wraps his arm around as much of Donut’s muzzle as he can in a companionable hug, which isn’t really much at all. “Of course not,” he says fondly. “I was just wondering… do you  _ like-like  _ her?” 

He winces at the sheer childishness of that particular phrasing. Donut tilts his large head at him quizzically. 

“Like-like?” he asks. 

“You know,” Wash says, and then fails to find any more accurate words. 

“I don’t?” he says uncertainly. 

“Like-- like husbands and wives. Like humans do when they’re in love. You know?” he says a little desperately. 

_ “Ohhh,”  _ Donut says, and Wash slumps in relief. “You mean like Officers Bitters and Matthews!” 

“What?” What does his crew have to do with this? 

“You know, how they kiss when they’re alone! Because they love each other a lot and want to make babies, I guess?” 

Wash wheezes for a bit at that. Donut makes distressed, worried noises at him before he gathers his composure. 

“You can’t tell  _ anyone _ else about that,” he says seriously. “You’ll get them into trouble.” 

“Why?” Donut asks, doing that confused head tilt again. 

“Just-- because--” Frustrated, he groans into his hands for a moment, before he summons up all of the determination he has. He cannot have his crewmen arrested for sodomy because his dragon is a terrible gossip who doesn’t understand human laws. “Alright, you know how you feel a deeper, different like for girl dragons than you do for boy dragons?” 

“... No?” 

“Right, so-- no?” 

“No,” Donut says thoughtfully. “I don’t think I feel that at all. Although I do feel a weird like for boy dragons sometimes! Like when Locus crashed into that one dragon so hard that he smashed it through one of the French ships _ ,  _ that was  _ very  _ impressive. It felt like something inside of me was on fire then, like when I get ready to breathe fire, except not like that at all.”

Wash spends some long existential moments absorbing this. 

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. You are not going to be breeding, then.” 

“Breeding!?” Donut asks. “Where did this come from? Don’t just suddenly change the subject like that, Wash!” 

“We’ll just have to be so exceptional on the battlefield that everyone will be too impressed to remember to insist on it… we’ll have to be much busier, Donut.” 

“Your priorities and notions can be so strange sometimes, dear,” Donut marvels, and Wash can’t help but crack a smile at that. 

-

Donut is three years old, and the war is over. Wash has two shiny golden medals that Donut adores, and the corps is  _ strongly _ hinting that it’s time for Donut to start breeding already. Wash cheerfully ignores every letter, conversation, implication, and outright order, pretending to be as obviously impenetrable as Donut himself. And he doesn’t relate a word of it to Donut. The dragon, and not to mention Wash himself, has more than done his duty to this country already. He isn’t going to pressure him into _ studding. _

“Wash, about what you said about husbands and wives,” Donut says one day and Wash immediately tenses up. Who went _ behind his back _ and brought that subject back up with _ his  _ dragon? He’s going to throw them over a cliff. 

“Yes, dear?” he asks carefully, already planning a murder. 

Donut looks hesitant and tentative as he gears himself up to broach the subject. “Don’t  _ you _ want one?” 

Wash pauses. “Pardon?” 

“Well, it’s just that in all of the plays you’ve acted for me, it seems like that’s all anyone ever really cares about in the end. Finding a wife if they’re a man, or a husband if they’re a woman. Someone they’re in love with and can have babies with. If it’s so important to humans then I don’t want for you to be missing out, Wash. You’re already going gray in your hair!” He gives Wash a serious, solemn look, as Wash defensively touches his hair. “If… if what you want is a wife, I’ll help you find the _ best  _ one in _ all  _ of the land, Wash. I promise.” 

“Donut,” he says, and then after one long moment of searching for words he bursts out into laughter. 

“Wash, it’s not a joke! I’m serious!” 

“Yes, yes, I know, dear,” he gasps. “It’s, it’s very sweet of you. Oh, lord.” 

Donut huffs at him and pointedly looks away from him. 

“Oh no, don’t be mad at me,” he says, still not quite able to wipe the smile from his face. “I’m just relieved, is all. I thought that you were going to talk about something else, but then you wanted to talk about  _ that…”  _

Donut looks at him suspiciously from the corner of his large eye. “So…  _ do  _ you want one then?” 

Wash seriously, actually considers it. 

He realizes that it’s the first time that he’s ever _ thought  _ to consider that question in his life. The first time anyone’s ever asked him, like it wasn’t already a given. It is not quite as dire as it is for women, not as much of a ticking clock, but the fact remains that all men are expected to  _ eventually  _ marry. Especially men with a fortune, which is now a demographic that he officially belongs to, which is still strange to think about. 

But Wash considers marrying, considers it not as a vague inevitability in his future, but as a  _ choice, _ and comes up with zero urgency or want in his soul. “Huh,” he says. “I suppose I don’t.” He smiles over at his companion. “I already have more than enough good company as it is, I guess.” 

Donut immediately dives for him, bowling Wash over, curling possessively around him. “Oh, Wash! That is such good news! Of course I would have found a wife for you, the best wife, one good enough for you, but I am glad to hear that I won’t have to share you with anyone…” 

Wash laughs, and fondly strokes his scales, and is overcome with the urge to _ give _ Donut something. Anything at all, so long as it makes him happy. 

“Dear, I have a gift for you,” he says a month later. With how many ships Donut has personally downed, and how long and tirelessly Wash has worked for the corps even before he became a captain, he has enough pay to comfortably live out the rest of his life. It is peacetime, Donut is pink and sharp toothed and larger than a house, beautiful and strange and still refreshing even years after Wash first laid eyes on him, the day is warm and the sky is clear, and Wash is filled to the brim with the urge to try and show Donut just how much he appreciates him, to make him  _ understand _ how loved and important and good he is. 

So yes, Wash got him a rather expensive present. Is that a crime now? 

“Oh, a gift!” Donut says excitedly, his wings fluttering hard enough to ruffle the leaves of nearby trees, even though he remains grounded. “What is it? Is it another play? A nice book? A lovely cut of meat? A--” 

Wash takes out the gift from behind his back, revealing it. 

He had had to have it commissioned. It is a bracelet, but if an unknowing human were to happen upon it, they would guess that it is a rather extraordinarily thick and heavy necklace, to the point that any human who would try to wear it would be bent underneath its weight. It is made of a strong sturdy metal, but coated in gold, and jewels positively drip from it. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, every kind that the jeweler had. The sight of it stuns Donut into silence, a rarity, and his eyes go wide and dumbstruck, the slit pupils dilating like a cat that has spotted something quite interesting, focused entirely upon the treasure in Wash’s hands. 

Wordlessly, he walks forward and puts it around Donut’s foreleg, near his talons. Donut holds his foreleg out and watches the gold and jewels slide and sway in the movement, catching the sunlight, entranced. 

Just as planned, it fits him perfectly. It looks a bit… gaudy, but Wash doesn’t care  _ what  _ he’d have to dress Donut in to make him so clearly happy, even though at the moment he looks a bit closer to tears than anything. 

“Do you like it?” he asks, even though he is already quite sure of the answer. 

“Oh!” Donut says. “How did I ever get lucky enough to get such a wonderful captain as you?” 

Wash smiles. “I love you too, dear.” 

Golden and jeweled and gleaming on his foreleg, the bracelet strangely reminds him of a wedding ring in that moment. 

**Author's Note:**

> And they were both ace happily ever after, so don’t worry about it. Or Wash can be a dragonfucker! Whichever you prefer.


End file.
